


A Great Big Fish

by TheLemonMaster



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Little bit of angst, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Polly Perks, Other, Post-Canon, Trans Man Maladict, Vampire Turning, vampire!Polly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27286975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLemonMaster/pseuds/TheLemonMaster
Summary: Vampirisim, and Conversations About --- Our Hero Dies --- A New Unlife To Start
Relationships: Maladict/Polly "Ozzer" Perks
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	A Great Big Fish

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Metamorphosis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10161299) by [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai). 



> I've been scouring Monstrous Regiment fics after reading the book, and while there were so many I enjoyed, only a select few scratched a certain itch of mine. The work "Metamorphosis" heavily inspired this fic, but I wanted to write the characters slightly differently, and I wanted to leave the option open to write more for it if I so feel the desire. Notes about gender: Maladict is a trans man, and Polly is agender but uses she/her.

Lord Vetinari, despite popular opinion, was not all knowing and most certainly not all powerful, and so it came to be that the peace he’d sent Commander Vimes to broker did not last. A scant half a year passed before Borogravia and Zlobenia were at each other’s throats again, this time over a dispute of leadership and relations. Polly, however, didn’t care what the reason was. She hadn’t signed up again for the politics of it --- though she certainly tried to keep a finger on the pulse of it --- but it was difficult to keep track of the current talks when she was doing all her best to keep her lads alive on the front line.

She thought back to the start of the war, back on that ferry with Maladict and Rosemary and Mary, how she’d given them her best sergeant talk with a smile on her face, and grimaced. Igorina was only able to help them so much, and an honorable discharge was the best they could hope for at this point. She beat back the feeling of failure with a rather large mental stick. They were, she reasoned, still alive, at least.

The same couldn’t be said for a few of the other lads under her patrol. They’d been ambushed on the road, and the soldiers leading the front had the worst of it. At least it had been quick. Polly’s grimace turned into a scowl, deepening when she dared to look down at her side. She was bandaged up now, Maladict performing the care so Igorina could attend to more pressing matters, but she felt like she should’ve still seen the offensive arrow jeering at her. They’d put up a good fight, her and her lads, and managed to drive off the Zlobenian patrol, but it had been costly; if we were attacked again, Polly thought darkly, they wouldn’t be getting away again.

The tent flap burst open and a shadow not so much walked as flitted into the tent. If it was possible for a shadow to be anxious, this one most certainly was a world contender for the gold medal.

“Mal, I’m fine. You don’t need to be so worried. It doesn’t look right on you,” Polly sighed. Maladict never fretted, so it was disconcerting to see worry plastered all over his usually-debonair face. She smiled, trying to put him at ease, but the frown only deepened. “Really. You have other duties to take care of right now, especially with me stuck in here on,” and she rolled her eyes slightly, “doctor’s orders.”

“Well I’m sorry for caring about my loving partner in an ambush attack that left multiple people dead!” hissed the vampire. After a moment with no response, he sighed and leaned in close to Polly, holding her face in his hands. His voice softened. “I’m the one who found you, Pol. You were just laying on the ground, there. I thought… I thought it was the end for you. There was so much buh bluh, blood around you!”

“And it wasn’t mine! Well, mostly. I think.” Uncertainty crept into her, and the sight of Rosemary swept back into her head.

“Pol. You damn well know that’s a low, and you damn well know I know that’s a lie. I don’t know how none of your injuries were serious!”

“I did have an arrow sticking out of my side, you know.”

“Yes, and somehow it didn’t hit anything important! You got lucky this time, Pol, but you can only get lucky so many times before… before…” His face fell, and Polly reached a hand over to pat him on the head, wincing slightly.

“Ow. Well, you know getting lucky is something I’m good at.” Rosemary again. She strangled a strange noise in her throat, and croaked out, “but… it doesn’t seem I’ve passed on my luck to the rest of the lads, does it?”

Maladict looked up, really looked into Polly’s face. It always felt strange when he did that thing where he looked at her with so much intensity it seemed he might see into her very soul, but he was always very good at it. “You’re thinking about that day back on the ferry, aren’t you?” It wasn’t a question.

“I tried so hard, Mal. I’ve spent years with some of these lads. You know Rosemary and Mary were the first! They’re alive, thank Nuggan, but what kind of sergeant is content with just alive?” She barked out a short laugh, because she had to, because if she didn’t the noises coming out of her mouth would be very, very different. “It’s been years, Mal! There’s talk of, of locomotives in Ankh-Morpork, Nuggan knows what those are! We were set up, oh it was all very nice, with a pretty little truce, wrapped up with a neat little bow, and once Vetinari got what he wanted, he left us! No more Duke Vimes sent over for negotiating peace once he got what he wanted!” She buried her face in her hands, the outburst surprising herself. It was true, though. Ankh-Morpork hadn’t even bothered to send so much as a letter suggesting peace between the two countries. What had happened?

“Pol-”

“I need you to get back out there, Corporal. What will the lads think to see you in here all the time, fretting over a wounded officer? They need direction, and the last thing they need is to be even more afraid!”

“Polly Perks,” said a voice that could’ve cut through steel at that moment. “I’m afraid. I can’t lose you, Polly, not like this.” She was surprised to see tears welling up at the corner of the Corporal’s eyes. That’s new, she thought, and realised that maybe she’d gone too far. Oops.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. The needling response died on her lips. But one day you will. The whole immortal vampire topic was a sort of taboo between the two of them. It was a hard conversation to have, to remember that the love of your life is very much going to have life when you don’t. “Mal…”

There was a bustle behind him and, suddenly, Igorina was there. “I’ve done what I can for everyone elthe, thirth. I’ll check up on Thergeant Perkth now, but do continue what you were doing.”

Maladict wiped away at the traitorous tears, which Igorina dutifully ignored, and turned back to Polly, letting go of her face so her wounds could be checked and her bandages changed. “Pol, you came out alright now, but one day you’re going to get hurt, and we won’t be able to save you.”

Polly tried to meet the vampire’s eyes, but he was looking away. What… where is he going with this? “I don’t know. Igorina’s pulled off some miraculous work,” she said cheerily.

“While I apprethiate the compliment, thir, I can only do tho much,” she said, eyeing the arrow wound. Apparently Mal had done a good enough job, because she grabbed fresh bandages and started to wrap it back up.

“Yes, ok, and…?” Polly turned back to Mal, desperately trying to catch him in the eyes, letting the question hang in the air.

“I… I don’t have to worry about getting killed on the battlefield. You know that. I-- I could--- that is, you could…”

You didn’t have to be a genius to pick up what he was trying to say. Polly, however, still had a hard time believing him. “Seriously, Mal? Turn me into a vampire?” She grunted as Igorina tightened up a bandage, cutting off any further response.

“I’ve heard it’th not that painful, thir, and there thertainly are other perks, if you will. Thorry, perkth,” Igorina offered. Somehow that didn’t help.

Polly’s head swam. Surely this couldn’t be right. She looked back at Maladict, wishing fervently he’d look her in the eyes, to prove to her he really meant it.

“Pol… you don’t have to say yes. But… I don’t want to lose you,” and she heard the desperation in his voice. “You were never afraid of me, and you understood me. I love you, Polly. Please, just… just think about it.”

And with that, a shadow left the tent and started barking orders at the nearest body capable of listening. Inside, Polly was left laying there, wondering what the hell had just happened.

*

It had been another couple years since then. The fighting had gotten nastier and nastier, and someone (Polly was quite certain who it was) was supplying weapons. Profiteering, she’d heard her higher-ups say with mouths twisted in anger. Well, whoever was doing this profiteering was doing a little too good a job of it, she thought with a sly grimace. These weapons are a little too good. Might even end the war at this rate. Of course, in her current situation, winning the war no longer concerned her. It was hard to be concerned with much of anything when she was looking right up into a dark-robed skeleton holding an hourglass. She couldn’t help but notice the hourglass was only trickling particles of sand at this point.

There had been another ambush. She’d fought at the very front, bravely, but her troops were exhausted and hungry and in no condition to fight. She ordered them to retreat, that she’d catch up to them later, she was just going to hold off the enemy so they could get away. A bloody, gurgling cough rattled its way through her body, and if she was in a better mood she would’ve chuckled. Yeah right she would. It was all she could do to hope her lads got away.

She’d certainly acted as a distraction. The Zlobenian patrol had laughed when they saw her standing alone, cutlasses in her hands, and decided that humoring her was more important than following the retreat of a beaten, ragtag group of Borogravian soldiers. She tried her damndest, but they’d surrounded her. Regrettably, they even decided to honor her with a duel, sending their best man to fight her one on one. Maybe she would’ve done better without the chorus of laughter every time her opponent drew blood, but she was outclassed and she knew it.

Apparently the soldiers thought it would be “honorable” to leave her on the ground, bleeding from a dozen different places, and march on without outright killing her. The bastards. She coughed again. The skeleton hummed a tune, quite comfortable to wait for the last bits of sand to fall.

There was a noise off to her left. At least, she thought it was her left. It was getting hard to tell which was what right now. It came again, and then suddenly she saw a face pop up behind her. Behind me? No, silly, that’s in front of me. She reasoned the correction was probably right.

The face was leaking something, and there were noises, but it was all getting very inconvenient for Polly, who decided to close her eyes and get some rest.

*

Polly’s eyes flew open. What greeted her was not the robed skeleton, nor anything else she was expecting. She was looking up at a Borogravian regulation tent, and she was very, very confused. Suddenly there came a shout from, yep, right next to me.

“Hey, keep it down, would you?” she groaned. Her head was throbbing, and all the light and sudden noise was not helping.

The voice decided that ‘keeping it down’ was not a reasonable course of action, and suddenly Polly felt herself in an embrace as Mal yelled out her name again. 

“Polly! You’re awake!” Mal choked back a sob, unsuccessfully, and tried to wipe the tears from his face. He was, overall, an extremely uncharacteristic mess with his red eyes and tousled hair that looked like it hadn’t been tended to in days. 

“Pleathe do not cry all over my pathient, Corporal,” came a measured, if not slightly peeved, voice from the other side of the cot Polly was laying on. 

Polly groaned again. Her head hurt, damnit, did they not understand? She covered her face with her hands, taking relief in the sudden darkness. “Where the hell are we, Corporal?” she growled.

“We’re… we’re off the road, right now,” Maladict sniffled. “When you told us to retreat, we thought it might be… prudent to make a wide circle back around…” His voice trailed off, and it sounded like he had to hold back fresh tears.

“He wath the one who found you, Thergeant,” Igorina offered, when Maladict didn’t continue. “I think to call you alive would be a dithervice to corptheth, thir, but you were thtill hanging on.”

That explained… well, a lot. She was having a hard time remembering anything from before she fell asleep. “Well, Igorina, you must’ve pulled off a hell of a job, then. I knew you had it in you,” she proffered with far too much cheer.

The silence was stifling. She heard Mal and Igorina shuffling awkwardly, and the wetworks started again from Maladict. Something dropped in Polly’s stomach. She peered an eye out from under her hands… grimaced at the light, again, and looked right at Maladict. 

“Mal?”

No response.

“Mal, please. Say something.”

The silence stretched longer. Polly was starting to feel frustrated between that and the extremely out of character behavior from Maladict --- seriously, what was he doing? --- and suddenly her hands shot out, grabbing him by the collar, and pulled him close. This surprised her, and it certainly surprised the vampire… no, the thought struck her, the other vampire. She felt like she’d been knocked upside the head again, and she let go, falling back onto her pillow.

“I had to, Polly! I had to! You couldn’t see what I saw. You had been bleeding out for hours at that point, there was barely anything left in you. I don’t know how you survived as long as you did! I couldn’t sit there and watch you die!” he wailed.

On the other side of her, Igorina tutted and frowned. “Sergeant Perks, tho long ath you are my pathient you will refrain from rath acthionth and you will thtay in your bed!”

She was a vampire. This was a very important fact to face, one which Polly decided to file away under deal with this at a later date. Right now she still had that blasted headache, and Mal’s snivelling and misery was not helping matters.

“Corporal Maladict, you are to control yourself before I hold… any kind of… important conversation about… current events… am I understood!” she snapped. “And get me something to throw over my face. And some earplugs. I can’t bloody think with this headache.

*

Later, Igorina would inform her that she had been out for a week. The transformation into the undead had been quite successful, and certainly much easier, given her state as a near-corpse herself. Polly herself certainly had no recollection of any kind of transformation herself, and counted that as a blessing, regardless of what Igorina had or hadn’t heard about how painful it was. 

“Your actionth thaved many of the troopth, thir. No one wath theriously injured.” Except me. “We all thet up camp after we found your body, but kept off the road, of courthe.”

It had been a couple days since Polly had first woken up, and she was gradually getting used to her heightened senses. The headache was still there --- everything was still _too much_ --- but she could at least stay under the tent during the day without a blindfold anymore. The sounds of the camp washed over her, and she grimaced, deciding to keep her makeshift earplugs in a little longer.

She turned back to Igorina, who was still talking. “They’ll be happy to thee you. I don’t think they know about the vamparithm, thir, but they’ll have to learn thooner or later.”

“Yeees, about that, Igorina…”

Igorina cut her off. “You don’t need to worry about blood quite yet,” and Polly’s stomach churned at the word. She decided she would probably have to be careful not to say it for a while. “You’ll be ok for the moment, and I have thome emergency retherveth for a vampire who hathn’t taken the ribbon yet. Just be careful if you get into any fighting.”

Polly nodded and donned the hat that had been proffered to her. “Thank you, Igorina.” She sighed. “It’s going to be a whole new world for me, isn’t it?”

Igorina didn’t respond, opting to give Polly what she presumed was a sympathetic smile, and gave her a slight push. “Now out you go from my tent, Thergeant Perkth. You’re perfectly healthy and don’t need to be taking up my thpathe anymore.”

Polly sighed and turned around, the tent flap gently swaying. “Well, Igorina, I suppose I’ll have to learn about this great big fish, then.”


End file.
